ABSTRACT
To describe the population processes of the universe of contemporary hunter-gatherers, it will be necessary to conduct many more studies of the kind reported for the !Kung. This chapter is devoted to an account of the known features of contact and social change in the Dobe area in order to assess the generalizability of the results of the !Kung demographic study. For the study of aspects of life that leave no trace in the archaeological record, we are fortunate to have contemporary human groups that continue to live by hunting and gathering to serve as an "ethnographic analogy" of prehistoric people. Alongside of the studies of the contemporary !Kung in the Dobe area, archaeological investigations of the occupancy of the past have been conducted. Stable population models provide valuable indicators of the average population composition to be expected in a population produced by the fertility and mortality schedules estimated for the !Kung.
